>> i don't think we're going to get the ending that we got in 1828. i think things are going to be okay. great to see you here in had studio, not on the trail. >> thank you. america reacts, this is "hardball." good evening, i'm chris matthews, in washington. the terrorist who struck brussels, are being answered by west against east, christian against muslim, they may have bargained for their lives what we're hearing now. a manhunt underway for one suspect from the bombs. also today, some of the men behind the attacks. prosecutors have identified two brothers, there they are, abbra him and khalid bakraoui. one of them blew himself up in the airport and the brother at

the subway system an hour later. the brothers are connected to november's paris attacks as well, which they helped to facilitate. another man in this photo at the airport before the first explosion. the man on the right is thought to have fled the scene and is still at large. middle eastern officials is saying isis is training hundreds of fighters to attack europe. meanwhile, back home in the united states, they've shaken up the presidential race. senator ted cruz has come under fire from president obama, secretary sanders, police at patrols, president obama says it's contrary to who we are. hillary clinton delivered a major speech about terrorism in response to the attacks. starkly contrasted her views on torture, foreign policy and

immigration against those of donald trump and other republicans. >> slogans aren't a strategy. loose cannons tend to misfire. what america needs is strong, smart, steady leadership to wage and win this struggle. >> we're going to talk about the latest from the campaign a little later. we begin with the new developments in the brussels investigation itself. chris jansing joins us from the city. you've been on top of it today. give us the police story, as it has evolved so far. >> well, human developments today, chris. look, for four months, police have been trying to put together the pieces of what happened in paris. now, and not in a good way, they're finding there are all these ties to what happened in brussels a couple of days ago. you mentioned the brothers involved, now we know in both taxes, also salah abdeslam, he was the one who managed to hide in plain sight in this city for four months before he was

arrested on friday. now we know, not only was he involved in the paris attacks, which is why police were looking for him, but they also believe and said today that they would -- that he would have been part of these attacks, had he not been arrested. there was a computer tossed away, by the older brother, what he wrote was a last will and testament indicating they were feeling the pressure, this cell, larger than police thought, knew the pressure was on once salah abdeslam was arrested and clearly moved up the attacks. this could not be put together in a couple of days. but they moved it up, knowing that police were breathing down their neck, chris. >> chris, let's take a look. hold the picture we had a moment ago of the three terrorists. on the hard left, i'm told, the middle is ibrahim bakraoui, of

course, he is dead. he blew himself up in the airport terminal. his brother did the same in the subway, khalid did the same in the metro. the gentleman on the left, if you want to call him a gentleman, do we know if he was the bomb maker? what is his role, the one of the three gentlemen, the one on the left? >> so there is still a question about the bomb maker. when we say the bomb maker, what police want to know, and will have been reports about this, nbc has not independently confirmed this, that he was a bomber. he was a suicide bomber. that he died at the scene, but he was also the bomb maker for the paris attacks. that's another piece of this puzzle, chris, that they've been looking for. they've been trying to figure out who made those bombs, and fingerprints and dna have led them to suspect that it might be the person who was involved in these attacks. we have not independently confirmed this. but certainly, it's something authorities looking at closely. >> so still on the loose right now is that guy on the right-hand side in the light

colored jacket. do we know anything about him? >> we don't know who he is. that's one of the puzzles here. they've done closeups of him, looking to see who he might be. particularly important, because even as they're questioning salah abdeslam, he is the key person, right. if there are more attacks being planned, he is the one they would like to question. why do they think there might be more attacks. huge bomb making factory that they found indicating that there was either a much wider plot that was originally planned, but again, if they speeded it up, it turned out to be these two locations, or that they have oon more plots in the works. so there a real urgency here. they've been doing raids throughout the day and officials have said today they're going to continue to do raids. he is priority one, to find that one man on the loose. big manhunt going on right now. >> chris, hold on for one second. i want to play for you while we still have you this translation of belgian prosecutor

translating the last wilf testament if you will of one of the terrorists. >> in the garbage bin, we found the will of the last will, weighs in a bad situation, he has been sought everywhere. he is no longer safe. and that if he dies, he may -- he thought he may end up in a prison cell. >> ibrahim bakraoui, was he afraid of setting up a safe house? what did he do with regard to paris? why was he on the run? >> well, he is the one who helped set up that safe house for sure. and he rented that apartment that was used as a safe house there.

but in addition to that, it does seem to be an indication, he doesn't mention salah abdeslam by name. it's really interesting. but authorities do believe when he said he didn't want to be in a cell next to him, that may be who he was referring to. but it's about the urgency, the bottom line that police officials read into what you just heard there, is the urgency they felt they wanted to get this pulled off. and so they were going to do it very quickly, and they knew if they didn't, they might go the way of salah abdeslam that they might come under arrest. >> amazing how it comes together just 48 hours now, less than 48 hours. chris jansing, thanks so much. president obama said defeating isis is his top priority, ruthlessly going after the networks, but the group's goal was to strike fear in our society, and it's important not to let them succeed. >> groups like isil can destroy us. they can't defeat us. they can't produce anything.

they're not a threat to us. they are vicious killers. and murders, who have perverted one of the world's great religions. we defeat them in part by saying you are not strong. you are weak. we send a message to those who might be sin expired by them to say you are not going to change our values. >> well, meanwhile, as i mentioned, the associated press reports isis has trained hundreds of fighters to carry out attacks in europe. she worked on national security policy in the obama administration. anthony roman a counterterrorism analyst. we don't have much time, but you've heard the reporting about the crime. sort of a detective story. the two brothers, played perhaps

leading up this this event. what does it project in your eyes. >> this shows that isis is clearly moved outside of the syria/iraq territory, and in fact, as we make gains against them there, they're spreading and trying to a terrible storm of factors. you have relatively open borders, land masses and countries that are close together, but have terrible information sharing mechanismless, for example, these brussels brothers were questioned by police, the paris attackers were questioned by police. information never shared with the french. you had people who were recently leaving turkey, after having fought in syria, going back to belgium. again, information not shared across country borders. if you ask anyone in the intelligence community, the sad thing is, they're not surprised that brussels is the place where the next terror attack happened. they clearly have to pull together there, resources, counterterrorism measures, and deal with the fact that they also have a population that is 40% unemployed, and at risk for

radicalization. >> belgium. >> belgium. >> we went to afghanistan to remove from al qaeda. you see pictures of people climbing along monkey bars trying to get in shape. what does that got to do planting bombs at airports. people could do that with the least physically fit people on the planet. training somewhere in the middle east and having access to the internet and getting their hooks into people. >> you know, isis is really a multi pronged organization. think of organized crime. they're money launders, they have different training bases for different purposes. they have intelligence training schools. they have bomb making training schools. speaking about the bomb making, the bomber, who was involved in

this, in terms of he being the bomb maker, if he was, he was a secondary bomb maker. simply because master bomb makers are critically important to isis, and they're not going to risk them by having them commit a suicide bombing. but there is so much going on behind the scenes, chris. there are tactical teams. hunting these guys down, all of the time. intelligence operatives, working and developing information. it is not an easy life being in isis. some of the kids that get involved in it and get recruited are really under a fallacy thinking that they're going to a wonderful adventure. the europeans are behind the curve on this, especially in brussels, allowing so many refugees to come on to the con continent without proper screening, embedded them to do recruiting and training. >> let's take a look at how we spontded. president obama said u.s. has seen fewer attacks, because its muslim population isn't

alienated here. let's listen. >> one of the great strengths of the united states and part of the reason why we have not seen more attacks in the united states is we have an extraordinarily successful patriotic integrated muslim american community. they do not feel ghettoized, they do not feel isolated. any approach that would single them out or target them for discrimination, is not only wrong and unamerican, but also would be counter-productive. >> i you know, sometimes ted cruz leaves me empty-headed. the idea of patrolling a neighborhood, as if it's a street crime neighborhood. that's how philadelphia, big city, street crime, muggings, et

cetera, dealing of drugs. this isn't about that. so what good would be driving cruisers or squad cars in the united states, even if such a concentration of people existed, with the idea of somewhere, some basement, someone is cook something. patrolling is the worst thing you could do, because it would create a sense of secret keeping. >> it goes against the entire idea of having integrated communities where people are friendly, open with each other, and the last thing the police in the u.s. need right now -- >> we were talking beforehand, you're from a pakistan background. that word came back, we haven't used it for a while, ghetto, separation, alien nation, are those words that generally fit the south asian experience in the united states? >> i would say at large, the minority experience in the u.s. is not one of feeling immediately, sorry, the

immigrant experience, is not one of feeling alienated, if you come legally, you sign up for the constitution, you believe in certain freedoms, and you're willing to accept those for other people. you have an american identity. it's not -- >> your accent changes in one generation. >> it's not like for example in france or britain, these are heridiary. >> would he need good news in this country. thank you for some good news. thank you for agreeing with me, anthony. still ahead this hours, new developments in the race, another establishment endorsement. by the way, the loser's club, the first candidate's club, as my producer called it, the first candidate's club of losers are getting behind ted cruz, a guy they really don't like. plus, the attacks in brussels a focal point in the presidential campaign, as the candidates

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have already used ziprecruiter. and now you can use ziprecruiter for free. go to ziprecruiter.com/offer99 >> brussels, jeff haufman were at the airport when the bombs went off. they shared their chilling account in an interview with matt lauer. >> it was like a whirlwind, like tornado going off behind them. it hit me. i felt it before i heard it. i still didn't know what was going on. i didn't understand what was going on. >> after the seconds explosion, it was dead silence. it was like everyone was gone in a moment. we'll be right back.

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>> donald trump continued his march to the republican nomination last night, with a decisive victory in the winner take all state of arizona, where he captured all 58 delegates. also a good night for ted cruz, who won utah, taking all of its 40 delegates. here was cruz earlier today. >> we had a huge victory last night in utah. we were hoping to break 50%. if we broke 50%, we would get all of the delegates, and we ended up blowing past that, nearly 70%. that is just the latest manifestation of what we're seeing across the country, which is we're seeing republicans uniting behind this campaign, coming together and joining in unity, because we recognize that if we nominate donald trump, it elects hillary clinton. >> just to put a little fact check there, jack and the bean stalk could have beaten donald trump in the mormon community. best hope of defeating trump is

not much of a hope or preventing him from clinching the 1,237. cruz received establishment types, including graham and romney. jeb bush announced he too is going back on the ship. first time in history, the rats have rejoined the ship. bush said for the sake of our party and the country, we must move to overcome the devis sieveness, democratic nominee. any way, the sport from these establishment types is stunning. given the hostility we all know they share towards cruz across the party itself. as chris writes in the "washington post," cruz is and was hated by the republican establishment party, grandstander with little interest with any of the niceties of polpolitics, and doesn't play well with others. it seems only donald trump could

turn the antiestablishment ted cruz into the new establishment leader. any way, joining me now, is henry barber, and national correspondent, joy reed. joy, i know the mormon community, it has views about social behavior, about religion and what a good person should look and behave like. trump is the opposite of that, a show off, bragart, the mormon community is much more humble, prudent and nicer, let's put it that way, nicer. it was easy for ted cruz to beat him. i said jack and the bean stalk could beat him. for that guy to beat him drum and said i just did in utah what i'm doing across the country, try that number in connecticut, new jersey, pennsylvania, it will be of no value where a lot of people like trump.

>> yeah, and chris, you know, the only surprise for me was the kasich actually didn't do better. he is a very evangelical guy, but a lot more of the temperament coming out of the lds church. what you saw here is ted cruz evangelical. he worked hard. the biggest statistical indicator of not supporting donald trump is being a mormon, they have the most antipithy. he never stood a chance. >> how does this race stand now when you have all the losers, executive producer referred to him as the first candidate's club, like the first wives club. they've gotten together in this odd gang, well, it's an odd gang, a motley crew to say the least. they all lost, they all resent the fact that trump beat them and now they think the whole is greater than the sum of their

parts. i think it's smaller. i think jeb jumping into this odd group of people makes him look smaller than he was when he left the field. your thoughts. zr well, if you're going to say losers, let's hillary clinton lost in 2008, and she hasn't come out yet for ted cruz. but i do think, chris, for the most part, endorsements don't matter. it may help a little bit with fundraising, but for the most part, ted cruz has a long way to go, but i don't think it will be decided until june 7th, when new york and new jersey, i mean california and new jersey will be voting. >> why do you think trump did so well in the deep south? if you look at map now that shows his enormous strength, gulf of mexico, florida, he carried them all. he carried all those states, very -- lots of baptists down there, he won every single one

against this guy. why is cruz claiming to about mr. evangelical. i don't get it. i like the way i tell you my opinion and ask you to challenge it. but that's how i do it. go ahead. >> that's all good. look, i think that donald trump has done well in the south, because people in the south are sick of what's going on in washington, like most folks in the country, and trump is appealing to them. he is appealing to them, both on national defense, on the border, and they're just sick and tired of the status quo. folks, look, my county voted over 50% for trump, which for me, i'm not proud of, but donald trump is going to have to grow as a candidate, chris, if he wants to close out the nomination, and certainly win the white house. he has got to show he can bring people together and not just divide them. >> how does he do that? how do you throw out the bath water? how do you keep the baby, keep the part of him that's attractive to many people, exciting, funny to some people.

turns them on, gives them a rise? how do you keep that part and get rid of the scarelus stuff. >> you don't. just to jump a little on your previous question, chris, if you think about it, the south is where republicans have most solidly consolidated the white vote, how did they do that? from the time of the 1960s, they did it by spurning, they did it based on promises, saying they would enforce promised and promised for more than 40 years and what they got was the south. they got by 2014, all of the southern states in the hands of the gop, but they didn't deliver. that's where you have the most angry people. the south is where barack obama in some states like alabama, louisiana got 12, 14% of the white vote.

so i think all that donald trump has to do essentially is just be the guy who is against the things that make them mad. things like immigration. things like trade. just being against that is all he has to do in the south. the problem with donald trump has not consolidated any where else. >> i agree, but there a piece missing. what really consolidated, wasn't just the civil rights bill, i know all that, but there was another thing down south. it was the idea you could go to public school, put your kids in public school, the neighborhood school, king james bible read at school. when that court decision came down and said no more prayer in school, no more organized prayer, a lot of people felt shaken lose from their foundation. isn't that right, henry? that's where the whole evangelical love affair with the republican party began? the democrats didn't protect the king james bible which they had grown-up with and gone to school with all their rights. >> the bill of rights matters,

all over the country, but i think you're right. certainly here, people want to protect their freedom of religion. they want to be able to practice their faith, both at home and they want their kids to be able to pray at school. when trump appeals to that, that is resonating with people. of course, ted cruz has done a lot of that himself. he has had strong showing in the south. but you know, this race is moving beyond the south, and i think that's where trump has got to grow as a candidate if he wants to be able to win. he is having a little trouble out west, he'll have some opportunities in states like new york, connecticut coming up, and it's going to be really interesting, but as i said before -- >> where i grew up, the men will like him and the women will have a problem with him. henry, please come back, you know. it's great to have you on. >> yes, sir. >> joyce, my dear, thank you. >> thank you. >> religion piece as well as the ethnic piece. we have to keep that mind. it came from the loss of the bible in school.

up next, tough talk, foreign policy becomes the focal point of this campaign, hard line candidates are taking as they explain what they're doing right now to combat the threat of isis, exploiting this now. this is "hardball," the place for politics.

>> they're coming into our country, and coming into our country. we have no idea what's happening. our government has absolutely no idea what's happening. but they're coming into our country. they're coming in by the thousands. and just watch what happens. i'm a pretty good. >> bomb bass particular rhetoric

gave him a bump after the attacks in paris and san bernardino. this is about open borders and islam phobia, trump has already tapped into my find some zen phobic traction. toxic cocktail alongside the bathtub gin of bombast. meanwhile, hillary clinton offered a more measured and perhaps thoughtful tone on how to combat terrorism. >> america doesn't cowher in fear or hide behind walls. we've stared into the stays of evil and refused to blink. whether it was fatish, or the cold war.

we'll defeat isis. >> michael crowley, the senior affair at politico. american urban networks, and "the new york timetimes." trump will exploit this. >> absolutely. i think that, look, trump is an emotional candidate. he speaks from the gut. heart not head. if people are afraid, constant drum beat of terror, i think they get irrational. i don't think they're thinking of the network of alliances. they're thinking of kill the bastards, who said that recently. i think that plays into trumps hands. they expressed high confidence it won't play out that way. they say no, when people are afraid, they're going to turn to somebody like hillary clinton who has a steady hand on the wheel. you saw her speech. the nato alliance, diplomacy.

they may be under estimating the degree to which emotion takes over. >> hillary is no duff. >> hillary is absolutely she voted for the iraq war. she doesn't get squeem mish, he saw her in the sit room, you know. i think she is ready to be there, as commander in chief right now. in a way that bernie sanders is not like he is a dove or anything, he is just not focused on it. social inequality right now. >> lined up next to these guys, trump, talking about banning all muslims and knocking the hell out of isis, carpet bombing them. >> how many -- >> right. >> he had no idea. >> hillary looks very reasonable and levelheaded about this.

i mean, so her rougher edges on this are kind of rounded out by her extremism. the thing about cruz, a guy like that, knows that this is unconstitutional. here is somebody who fancies himself to be constitutional scholars, and he is going to go in and patrolling the neighborhoods. >> it's like he is going to patrol a tough neighborhood with a lot of street crime. no, someone is in a room plotting something. driving up and down with a squad car is not going to do anything other than keep it quiet. >> we're the kind of society if that were to happen. i'm going to go back to something that the naacp said a couple of months ago when president obama made the statement in the oval office, talking about terror. assuring the american public that he is doing all that he can. words mean something, number one. number two, the naccp said muslim americans here in this

country are really trying to make a life for themselves. they do better here than any where else in the world. therefore, because of that dynamic alone, they are the ones that are really upset about what is happening. they're saying don't put us all in a pot with these crazies. and the problem is that all people in the muslim community are being blanketed and told, you know, we're going to watch you, when it's a few and not all. that's a problem. >> it serves the purpose of the terrorists, it creates an east/west war. not knocking about 30 people in brussels, it's igniting something. they become the heros to all of islam and knock all off the moderate governments because they can't stand the east/west polzation. >> in these communities, if you have a sense of division, a sense that the police are here, they're out to get us, being president cuted, you don't get the kind of cooperation that you immediate. if you talk to counterterrorism

experts, in what they call cve, they say you really need to have, you know, you need to have personal relationships with these communities. you have to be seen as a friend, not a watchman. not somebody who -- >> i agree. >> standing on the wrong side of the line and snack them back. >> let's talk about hillary clinton. hillary clinton is known as more hawkish than most democrats. she is at least hubert humphrey. she supported the iraq war. you can say later it was a mistake for plits cal reasons, but you all know, same situation, she would dot same thing. she is actually in a pretty firm position now, hillary. not being a dove. >> you say she is more hawkish but i'm still looking at something we haven't talked about. she was secretary of state, the woman of peace. >> well, she wanted to bring in the air fire in libya. >> but wait a minute. in that department, it was about

diplomacy. >> i remember when we had the plane over china, she was ready to rumble. >> when it comes time -- >> compared to trump, though, she still trounces him in every major general election poll, bloomberg, cnn, "wall street journal," everyone, she crushes him by at least ten points. >> clear-cut election, it will not be a divvy election to vote in. the round table sticking with us, these three folks will tell me something i don't know tonight. you're watching "hardball," the place for politics.

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welcome back to "hardball." michael, tell me something i don't know. michael crowley, wrote a piece today in politico. >> in my reporting on that piece, i spoke to someone who served a senior level in the intelligence community. >> what is her name? >> i'm just kidding. >> who said -- >> pressure is on. >> that nonpartisan professional technical expects in the military, uniform communities are freaking out about donald

trump. maybe there is a way we can reach an accommodation with this guy. >> you mean as commander in chief if he wins. >> they don't see it. >> i talked to harry belafonte this week. >> how is he doing. >> he is 89 years old. not always supportive of everything president obama does, but he is -- he is someone now supporting president obama in this cuba effort. he says it was a great effort. >> i bet he would like it. he is a proud man of the left. >> with all of the talk of the republican establishment coming around for ted cruz, there is an interesting sub plot developing. that is republicans talking about the idea of nominating him as someone who would break the fever on the right of we have to nominate the most conservative republican, because that's the only way we win, if ted cruz gets nominated, chances are, republicans will lose 35 states

and some of them want to get it out of their system. >> let them have mcgovern this time, goldwater. i know that argument. >> thank you to the round table. as always, the star of the show. >> thank you. >> up next. looking for america to speak to two "washington post" reporters to hear the concerns of everyday citizens as we choose a president. this is going to be great. this is "hardball," the place for politics. residents of brussels,

residents of brussels, american living brussels was riding the metro behind the one attacked. despite his brush with horror -- >> we've been under high security alert for some time and that had kind of become normal and part of everyday life. i think life will eventually go on. you have to get used to things as they are. it's good to trust the authorities, to the extent that we can, about what to do to be safe. and life will go back to normal eventually, i'm sure i'll take the metro to work once it's running fully again. >> we'll be right back.

we're back for 35 days, "washington post" reporters, david marin and robert samuels interviewed scores of voters, which candidate to support this year. the final product, a four part special report called look "looking for america," why ordinary citizens politics and what it means to be an american this year. discontent in this country, but opinions varied about how to fix it. a bit of what they found. >> the baseline of this country, the heartbeat of this country is no longer there. i know so many people that have given up. >> there are so few jobs out

there, and the economy has become stagnant, it has forced you to stop looking for work. >> there is a lot of work that needs to get done. i know a lot of people don't feel the same type of encouragement. they see stuff as broken. >> wow, well the for every disgruntled person out there who felt undone by this system and threatened by the way the country was changing, caught in the bind of stagnant wages or longing for an america of the past, we found someone who endured decades of discrimination, hardship yet still felt optimistic about the future and had no destory to go backward. i'm joined by the authors of "looking for america," "washington post" social editor, and political reporter, robert. there are a lot of theories out there. what's going on, what's driving people the way they want to think and vote right now? >> i think what's driving a lot of people, they feel the idea of the american dream, what makes people upwardly mobile is noing on longer there, worked in the way when they grew up.

how people envisioned that at first vaied depending who they are and where they are from. >> okay. david? >> you know, i think that what's going on is a culmination of 20 or 30 years of a dissolution of institutions, of a growing disconnect between the two parties, a division between the two parties and a lot of people just feels unsettled about where they are right now. one of the central threads of what we're trying to do is find out people view america. there are very different definitions of what it means to be an american, what a great america means and that divide is just growing. >> i've heard people of color say to me, when you say make america great again, you mean before we had rights? >> one of the most interesting parts that happens in the series is the first group we hear about making america great, they're evangelicals who live in iowa and talk about, you know, when we talk about how great the '50s were, people think we're talking about bigotry but what we're

talking about is people honoring the constitution and the idea we have god-given rights. later in the story we meet african-americans who say, when people say that, do they mean when segregation existed? >> yeah. >> what we're seeing there is there's an unspooling of the thread, we haven't recognized what our past has been. because we haven't recognized what the past meant to us, i think that predicated some these issues we're seeing in this election and in the future. >> one of the starkest contrasts i saw in that way in michigan, i went to mccomb county -- >> you're always writing -- >> wisconsin even more, but yes, i'm a midwestern guy. i went to mccomb county where all the reagan democrats started, where they're now trump democrats and where trade is a huge issue and a lot of the labor people started out as democrats have gone to trump. >> yeah. >> they were talking about essentially, you know, focusing back on america and not, you know, the world so much.

and, you know, we want people to -- trump to make america great again back here. and then i went to detroit and found an arab-american woman who's doing that very thing. she's an american, she's working in detroit on the neighborhoods focusing on this country. so you have these two groups that couldn't be more divergent yet they're sort of talking about the same issue. >> explain bernie versus donald trump. >> well, i think -- >> why do people go to one guy who promises more government -- >> right. >> basically if you want to be positive about it, more responsibility from the government to help people in need, health care and that kind of thing, then the other guy saying that government's not going to help you at all. >> right. i think what people are drawn to are the radical solutions of both, right. so you have people who are in the same camp who are either drawn to bernie or drawn to donald trump. the reason you see that happening is because there's a sense of idealism that bernie sanders exudes.

you know, he'll say, the system's bad, but we can all fix it together. we can all do it collectively. with donald trump, you know, you saw people who wanted someone in charge, who wanted a boss. you know, who says we have a problem and i can fix it. so you just trust me, and i will be that great president. >> we've seen these histories before. authoritarianism. the appeal of the man on horseback. in american history. the guy who's going to come and save it all. because of him? >> we've seen it not just in america but around the world. >> right. >> it often leads to -- >> the socialist promise, by the way, which often turns out not to be as good as promised like in latin america and eastern europe. how do they get a copy of this? >> washington post.com. >> they get the whole series? >> yes. >> it's one of the great papers ever. thank you, david, thank you, robert samuels. when we return, let me finish with this connection between the terrorism over in belgium and the elections held here in america. you're watching "hardball," the place for politics.

let me finish tonight with this connection between the terrorism over in belgium and the election nearing here in america. well, it's certainly a real connection. as soon as the word hit of the brussels airport and metro, the candidates here all put out statement, all quick to show they were on it. some were keener than others. trump shows, well, he knows what side the bread's buttered on, he knows his brand, that brand is strength.

yes, big talk, but with it the promise, threat of action. build a wall, ban muslims, torture the terrorist, go after the families. what happened yesterday morning in brussels he'll say backs up everything he says, we need to be tougher. trump tougher. cruz's line of political work is showing how cruel he can be, call him the carpet bomber. hillary clinton's seen as a hawk, herself, is on firm ground when it comes to this kind of situation. people know she did vote for iraq. saw her in the situation room when osama bin laden got his desserts. heard her here on "hardball," even when the topic turned to regime change and knocking off the bad guys. i don't think senator sanders is that enthusiastic. here at home, social justice. not the discussions the horror at brussels would naturally ignite. here we are again in the aftermath of an event, death of 31, injuring of others.

in the european capital it looks a lot like here, scare and injured people we can imagine of ourselves. quality of our defense, the strength and smarts of our leaders, and like it or not, the heights of fashion of those who promise to protect us. when threatened, countries lurch right. when scared, people look to those who harkin most gamely to the sound of battle. and that's history talking. and since yesterday morning, we've once again become an impassioned part of it, for better or for worse. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "all in with chris hayes" starts right now. tonight on "all in" live from brussels. >> how would you define a muslim neighborhood? >> the investigation continues in belgium as a call for patrolling muslim neighborhoods starts a political firestorm in the u.s. >> it's wrong. it's counterproductive